arry on his plots and plans, had, by dint of
violence, immured him, Charles, in a dungeon, and loaded him with
chains. There he lay sleeping, and at his mercy.

"Shall I awaken him," said Charles, "or let him sleep off the fatigue,
which, no doubt, is weighing down his limbs, and setting heavily on his
eyelids. No, my business with him is too urgent."

He then raised his voice, and cried,--

"Varney, Varney, awake!"

The sound disturbed, without altogether breaking up, the deep slumber of
the vampyre, and he uttered a low moan, and moved one hand restlessly.
Then, as if that disturbance of the calm and deep repose which had sat
upon him, had given at once the reins to fancy, he begin to mutter
strange words in his sleep, some of which could be heard by Charles
distinctly, while others were too incoherently uttered to be clearly
understood.

"Where is it?" he said; "where--where hidden?--Pull the house
down!--Murder! No, no, no! no murder!--I will not, I dare not. Blood
enough is upon my hands.--The money!--the money! Down, villains! down!
down! down!"

What these incoherent words alluded to specifically, Charles, of course,
could not have the least idea, but he listened attentively, with a hope
that something might fall from his lips that would afford a key to some
of the mysterious circumstances with which he was so intimately
connected.

Now, however, there was a longer silence than before, only broken
occasionally by low moans; but suddenly, as Charles was thinking of
again speaking, he uttered some more disjointed sentences.

"No harm," he said, "no harm,--Marchdale is a villain!--Not a hair of
his head injured--no, no. Set him free--yes, I will set him free.
Beware! beware, Marchdale! and you Mortimer. The scaffold! ay, the
scaffold! but where is the bright gold? The memory of the deed of blood
will not cling to it. Where is it hidden? The gold! the gold! the gold!
It is not in the grave--it cannot be there--no, no, no!--not there, not
there! Load the pistols. There, there! Down, villain, down!--down,
down!"

Despairing, now, of obtaining anything like tangible information from
these ravings, which, even if they did, by accident, so connect
themselves together as to seem to mean something, Charles again cried
aloud,--

"Varney, awake, awake!"

But, as before, the sleeping man was sufficiently deaf to the cry to
remain, with his eyes closed, still in a disturbed slumber, but yet a
slumber which might